RE: Another intentional misuse of P-32 -Reply

[Roger Pedersen <RLP1@nrc.gov>]

This thread is touching upon the reason that the NRC stesses the importance of
establishing an appropriate "safety culture" at licensed facilities.  Intentional
misconduct is very difficult to prevent.  A preferable alternative is to provide a
working environment where workers have other ways of expressing themselves -
or at least an environment where the truely disgruntled can be identified and dealt
with.

Roger Pedersen
Senior HP
US NRC

>>> "Quang Le" <qmle@icnpharm.com> 06/04/98 06:33pm >>>
Sandy Perle wrote:
<<<That is not the issue. The issue has to do with how one prevents
these occurrences from happening in the first place. As you are well aware,
there is no way to guarantee that any individual can be restrained or
prevented from intentionally causing an incident. Be it removing material
from a controlled and restricted area, from dosing their dosimeter, from
by-passing a frisking station, etc. The plants I worked at instituted
frisker watchers to mitigate INPO concerns on contaminations at step off
pads. It worked for awhile,, but what
was the risk, and look at the cost involved!  The bottom line is, unless we
are going to assign a babysitter to every worker in every facility, we are
going to have incidents. We can proceduralize as many things to help
prevent them. We can institute as many surveys to identify them. But the
real issue can not be eliminated 100%. That is the real bottom line. Where
there's a will, there's a way.>>>

I agree 100%. At least, on a practical front. I'll explain below.

I have personal knowledge of a "former" rad. worker who intentionally
contaminated himself to get management's attention!!! Oddly enough, this
person also worked with and used P-32 in his ingenious (he thought) acts.
At first, he was just thought to be sloppy. Not until a "baby-sitter" (yes
Sandy, one was assigned) was assigned to watch, that the rad. safety
personnel discovered that these contamination incidents were intentional.
Fortunately, most contamination were minor and did not result in any real
dose problem. But since they involved rather strange parts of the body
(hair, back of neck and head, undershirt, back...) enormous time and effort
were spent by the rad safety staff in investigation, monitoring and
decontamination.

Are acts such as this preventable? Maybe, in theory. In this case, and I
guess in all cases, the employee had a reason to do what he did. THAT
reason could have been eliminated had it been known. Management could have
addressed the employee's concerns more responsively for example.
Unfortunately, reasons for doing things are rarely known to anybody other
than the person(s) involved and will remain that way until after the acts.
So, what can we, the people assigned with the task of ensuring employees
safety, do? We can do all the things Sandy and others mentioned to detect
early, help prevent and maybe discourage such acts. But I doubt we can ever
completely prevent them.